A baby. She touched her still-flat belly. Could it be true? She knew enough to realize that if a woman missed her time of month by several days, there was a good chance she was pregnant; and heaven knew they had made love often enough that she was surprised it had not happened sooner. Once they had fallen into each other’s arms, it had been impossible to stay away from each other. There had even been days when they cut their work short because they wanted to make love instead.
She looked up when she saw movement in the distance. Ethan was coming back, some kind of deer or antelope hung over his shoulder. Her heart leaped with relief at the sight of him. “Ethan! I was beginning to worry. What took you so long?”
His dark eyes looked troubled as he came closer, almost as though he was angry about something. He dropped the antelope. “I followed a moose up higher,” he lied, “and chased him all over but couldn’t get a good shot. It wouldn’t have done me any good even to have Blackfoot with me. The steep climb would have been too much for him.”
Allyson noticed he looked tired, and his clothes and hands were soiled. “My goodness, you must have crawled on your hands and knees half the time.”
Ethan looked down at himself, then began brushing himself off. “I tried crawling up a steep bank to get around the other side of him, but the damn thing outwitted me.”
Allyson thought it odd that a man like Ethan couldn’t get something as big as a moose, but then she supposed those things happened. “You look so tired. You can hunt another day, Ethan. Sit down and rest.”
He took off his leather hat and set his rifle aside. “A moose would bring practically enough meat to last most of the winter. Now all we’ve got is this little antelope. I’ll have to clean it pretty quick and start smoking the meat.”
Maybe we won’t need all that much meat. We might not be here all winter. Why couldn’t she bring herself to say the words? She pulled a sweater closer around herself, thinking how quickly it got chilly up here now. The summer had seemed so short, but maybe it was partly because it had been spent with such joy, mining her claim, sleeping with Ethan, being loved and in love. She dished up a plate of potatoes and carrots. “At least I’ll be able to mix a little meat with the vegetables next time,” she commented, handing him the plate. She felt a strange chill at the way Ethan was watching her, as though she might jump up and run away any moment. “Ethan, is something wrong?”
You’ve hit your bonanza, Ally. You’re a rich woman. He took the plate. “No. I, uh, I’m just disappointed I didn’t get that moose, that’s all. It would have made things a lot easier. If we already had enough meat, I could get around to other important chores, like chopping some wood and getting back to digging more gold out of that mountain.”
“You’re into a softer area now. I can do some of it.”
“I don’t like you being in the cave. It’s getting more dangerous now.”
“You have it shored up good. We get so much more out of there than by panning the creek. If that’s our biggest find, we might as well make the most of it while we’re up here. At least we know there’s enough in there that we can ask at least five thousand for the claim if and when we sell it.”
If? There was that word again, the one that made him doubt her love. Ethan struggled to get the words out again, but they would not come. He could just imagine her reaction. She would scream and dance, hug him, jump up and down…and right away she would start planning her future—a big house in Denver or Colorado Springs, fancy gowns, the best carriages, joining Denver’s social elite. She could make history as the richest woman miner ever. Ethan Temple, her Indian lover, would be forgotten, no longer good enough for the fancy Miss Allyson Mills. She would consider selling now, but not if she knew about that vein farther up the mountain.
He finished the would-be stew, and Allyson was surprised at how little he ate. Something was not right, but then he did sometimes get a little moody and quiet. She attributed it to the Indian in him. She cleaned up camp while Ethan hung the antelope from a tree and gutted it. Once it was thoroughly cleaned, he climbed the tree and hung it up higher so wolves could not get to it. “It won’t spoil overnight as long as the insides are cleaned out,” he told her. “I’ll skin it and finish cutting it up for the smokehouse in the morning. I’ll show you how to clean a hide and stretch it out in the sun to dry. No sense wasting a good hide. There are a lot of uses for it, leastways if you’re an Indian. Indian women could find a hundred uses for the thing.”
Allyson wondered if he was comparing her to Indian women, trying to say she was less capable. She was tempted to argue the issue, but then decided against it. Something would probably come out wrong and he would take offense. She had unintentionally insulted the Indian in him once too often, and she wished he understood just how proud she was of his heritage, not ashamed. There was a time when she thought it was terrible for a white woman to love a man like Ethan, but she hardly thought about his being Indian anymore. He was just a man—good, brave, handsome, gentle, skilled—everything a woman needed in a man…a woman, that is, who wanted to need a man.
Ethan scooped up the insides with a shovel. “They’d even find use for some of these guts, but I won’t bother with it. I’ll dump this farther away on the other side of the creek to keep the wolves away from the cabin.”
Allyson carried plates and the pan to the creek to wash them, then returned to the cabin to get ready for bed. Their routine was to retire as soon as it got dark, then get up at the crack of dawn for another long day’s work. She waited for Ethan, but he did not come right away. She lit a lantern, deciding that whatever was bothering him, she would let him brood about it alone. If he wanted to talk about it, he would come inside and say what he had to say. He still might. She took out a little book of Shakespeare she had bought back in Denver just out of curiosity, opened it, and began reading by the light of an oil lamp, wishing she could better understand some of the fancy prose. Maybe she could, if she could concentrate; but her mind was on Ethan and the way he had looked when he first returned, and the fact that he had hardly eaten. Now, for some reason, he was out there sitting alone. All that over not being able to bag a moose? Male pride was something she would never quite understand. It was different from her own stubborn pride, something a man took very personally, especially one as virile as Ethan Temple. She understood more clearly why the way she had used him back in Guthrie had stung him so deeply, and she supposed he would never quite forget it.
It was nearly an hour before he came inside, and he still had that look on his face. It was difficult to fully read it. One minute he looked angry, the next minute almost guilty, and sometimes he had almost a pleading expression. He wore only his longjohns, and he was clean—apparently he had washed in the creek. His face and hands and arms were still damp. He walked over and picked up a towel to wipe himself off. “I left my buckskins outside. I’ll have to scrub them in the morning and lay them out to dry.”
To Allyson’s surprise he walked over to her chair and scooped her up in his arms, then carried her to the bed. She smiled when he laid her on it and moved on top of her.
“You’d better be naked under this gown, lady,” he told her, moving his hand under it and along her thigh to her bare bottom.
“Always ready for my man,” she answered.
Ethan took off his longjohns, then pushed up her gown, positioning himself between her legs. This was one of those times when all they needed was to be joined. Sometimes he was slow and deliberate, taking his time, taking her into a realm of ecstasy that made her wonder if she was even still in the real world. He would touch, kiss, taste every part of her, exploring her most secret places. He had taught her the glory of pleasing him and taking her own pleasure in all kinds of ways, bringing out a wantonness in her that amazed and sometimes even embarrassed her after it was over.
Tonight she knew there would be none of that. He simply needed to be inside of her, to quietly take his woman. “I love you, Ethan,” she said, thinking that for some re
ason he needed to hear it tonight more than usual.
“Do you?”
She caressed his face, the high cheekbones, the perfect lips. “Why would you ask such a thing after what we have discovered about each other up here?”
He studied the blue eyes. You’re a rich, rich woman, Ally. I don’t want to lose you. “I don’t know. I guess I just need to hear it sometimes.”
“I love you more than I have loved anyone or anything in my whole life.”
He kissed her lightly. “More than a fortune in gold?”
She laughed. “I don’t think we’re going to have to test that one. Our little bonanza didn’t pan out quite the way we hoped it might. But if it had, I’d give it all up for you if I had to.” I’m going to have your baby, Ethan. No, this was not the time. She wasn’t sure of his mood tonight. He was very different.
Ethan wished he could believe she would give it all up for him. He knew deep inside that eventually he probably would have to test her on that. He couldn’t keep what he had found today hidden from her forever. But he could keep it from her for just a little while longer. He met her mouth again, this time savagely, suddenly needing to prove to himself she belonged to him. After finding that vein of gold, he felt desperate to hold on to her, to make sure she knew she belonged only to Ethan Temple.
Quickly he was inside of her, probing deep, claiming her, eager to make sure she knew she could not get by without this, without Ethan Temple in her bed, allowing her the joy of being woman and loving fully. She had to understand that love came first.
Allyson groaned with a mixture of surprise and an excitement at the way he took her tonight. How could a man be almost brutal yet still gentle? It almost hurt this time, filling her to near-painful proportions. He surged rhythmically, pushing hard. He raised up to his knees, spreading them so that her legs were wide apart. He grasped her hips and pulled her to him, invading her with the look of a conquering warrior. It was both exciting and almost frightening. This was not the usual Ethan. Tonight he seemed almost a stranger, someone come to put his brand on her and make sure she knew he owned her. She closed her eyes, her breath coming in gasps as he pounded into her. He pushed up her nightgown so that her breasts were exposed. He studied her nakedness with unreadable dark eyes, until finally his life spilled into her.
The stranger in him gradually gave way to Ethan, and he looked apologetic. He lay down beside her and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Allyson touched his chest. “What’s wrong, Ethan?”
He sighed deeply, stroking her hair. “Nothing. I just…sometimes I imagine I’m still going to lose you, that’s all.”
“You aren’t going to lose me. Don’t you realize I worry about the same thing?”
“That’s different. You only have to worry about losing me to death, because that is the only thing that could take me from you. I worry about losing you to something else.”
“That can’t happen, Ethan. There was a time when it could have, but not anymore.”
How he wanted to believe that. He did not answer, but held her until sleep finally overtook them both. Ethan’s last thoughts were of a secret, glittering vein of gold that lay waiting to make someone very rich. He just didn’t want that someone to be Ally. He could keep it from her, but what about Roy Holliday? If he did know about that vein, he was surely going to do something about it before the winter was over. If they were in danger, Ally should know, but telling her meant letting her know what was up on that mountain…the fortune she had always dreamed of.
27
Allyson set down her coffee cup, ready to start a new day of digging. She worried the work might be too strenuous, now that she could be pregnant, but at least they were into softer rock now. Ethan needed to chop wood and do more hunting, and if she really was pregnant, that would mean they would have to leave the claim and get down to Cripple Creek before their year was up. She couldn’t have a baby up here, where they could get trapped by snow. The cabin would probably be freezing cold in winter, they could run low on food, anything could happen. That meant getting as much gold as possible out of the earth before they had to leave. The more they had to show a prospective buyer, the more they could ask for the claim.
A baby. She should tell Ethan right now, tell him he didn’t need to worry about storing up for the whole winter. In fact, the right thing to do would be to go down to the city and get married and make the baby legal. As soon as she was very sure she really was with child, she would have little choice but to tell Ethan and do the right thing. What worried her was that he might not believe marriage was what she really wanted, but baby or no baby, she would marry him in a second if he would just ask. The fact remained he had not asked, and she knew it was because he was not positive she really would choose him over her gold.
Last night had been beautiful. After that first almost-violent intercourse, Ethan had softened. They had made love again, slowly, intimately. Ethan Temple could handle a woman just as expertly as he could handle his guns and knife. The Indian in him gave him an almost worshipful attitude toward love and life, which helped her understand the deep hurt he’d felt over their disastrous marriage. It had meant everything to him, but circumstances had made it seem it had meant nothing to her. Finally they were getting back what they should have had the first time around, and she didn’t want to do anything to make him doubt her again. She just wished she knew how he would react to her being with child.
She watched Ethan come toward her from the smokehouse, a small stone structure he’d built for curing meat. She was fascinated by how much he knew about such things, and she wondered how she ever would have survived up here without him. “Before long it will be so cold, all we’ll have to do is hang our meat from the trees and let it freeze,” Ethan told her as he came closer. He had gotten up extra early to cut down the antelope and skin it so he could get started curing the meat. “We’re going to have to take turns checking the coals in the smokehouse,” he added. “I probably should have built it bigger, but there wasn’t enough time. I had barely enough room to hang all the meat.”
“Are you hunting again today?” she asked, getting up from the campsite.
“Not today. I’ve got some digging to do.”
“In the cave? I can do that. You said you needed to—”
“Not in the cave.” He came around the fire and bent down to kiss her cheek. “I’m digging a tunnel, starting near the privy. I’ll dig into the mountain, circle to where the cabin backs up against the mountain, and make a doorway at the back of the cabin that opens right into the tunnel.”
Allyson rose, frowning. “Whatever for?” Ethan grinned, but she got the distinct impression it was a false smile, the kind a person uses when they’re trying to assure someone that everything is just fine when it really isn’t.
“A lot of reasons. For one thing, come winter, the walk from the front of the cabin around to the privy is going to be damn cold, especially if it’s the middle of the night, let alone having to trudge through snow. This way, you’ll be able to just walk out the back side of the cabin through a tunnel that will be out of the wind and the snow, then take a couple of steps from the opening to the privy. Another reason is simple safety. What if that damn, flimsy excuse of a cabin should catch fire? We’ll be using the wood stove a lot more once winter really sets in. If the front of that cabin was in flames, we’d be trapped. This way we have another escape.” He gave her a wink. “Don’t worry. I’ve checked the ground there, and it’s soft in that particular spot, not all rock like so much of the rest. I only have to dig about fifteen to twenty feet. I’ll be done in a couple of days. Then I’ll get started on the wood. I’ll spend half a day helping you dig and the other half cutting wood and doing a little hunting.”
He turned and walked down to the creek to get a shovel. Allyson watched him, not at all convinced he’d told her everything about why he was digging a tunnel from the cabin to the privy. It seemed a strange thing to do,
but then what he had told her did make sense. Should she tell him not to bother? She touched her belly. If she wasn’t pregnant, they would probably stay up here most of the winter, in which case, she reasoned, the tunnel would come in handy. She shrugged it off, then headed for the cave to do another kind of digging. She reached for a pickax, noticing how dry and rough her hands had become. She looked down at herself, decked out in baggy denim pants and a common shirt. She hadn’t worn lip color or rouge or a pretty dress in months. How Ethan could find her attractive anymore, she could not imagine. Before long she would get fat on top of it all, but then to a man like Ethan, none of those things seemed to matter. That was what she loved about him.
Down at the creek Ethan picked up a shovel, then glanced up to watch Allyson heading for the cave. He hoped she had swallowed his story. The real reason for the tunnel was to have an escape, a way to hide and maybe sneak up on someone who might come visiting unexpectedly. That day Wayne Trapp had broken down the cabin door, Allyson had no escape. He didn’t want that to happen again.
You’ve got to tell her, his conscience reminded him. Show her the bonanza. That was the honest thing to do. He could just see Ally’s face if she saw that vein. The light in her eyes would no longer be there because of her love for him. Something would replace that love, something rich and golden. In his whole life, with all the things he’d been through, the dangers he had faced, nothing frightened him more than that vein of gold.
All night, after making love to her, he had argued with himself that it was best for them both if he didn’t tell her. Somehow they had to get through the winter, then get to town and sell the claim. As long as she didn’t know about that bonanza above them and it wasn’t reported, Holliday would think they still had not found it, which meant he would probably leave them alone…but then he might try something because he was afraid that if they stayed up here too long, the secret would be discovered.
Unforgettable Page 38